After waking late and doing my morning hygiene routine, I checked my condition. I disregarded Nanna's warning and now the damage was showing. I was slightly better than yesterday. Instead of having the recovery fix my burnout, it only mended the damage I incurred yesterday. Even though I had to save Dime from that wild lynx. I looked at the bird resting on its wooden perch stand.

"You stay indoors today," I told the sky-lord. "Rest and take it easy. There's enough food and water for you. Try not to poop in the wrong place."

It meant no Decompose and no storage today. Absolutely not.

The sky was clear blue. I could see that the level of fine dust suspended on the air was high, Maybe the ashes from the explosion and other fine aerosols brought in by the winds. No moisture though. It made the lower parts of the sky near the horizon get a faint pale ochre tint. I focused my sight on the farthest thing I could see, the Enshi's palace sitting on the tallest point of the city. I could see the seams of the rock bricks. And the odd combination of the eagle's sight with my minute vision boon allowed me to see the cracks even from this distance with great detail. I could feel that straining my sight this way used up a tiny amount of magic energy and that I had to do a conscious effort to use it otherwise my vision would revert to normal human standards.

I had a meeting with the Enshi and the City Council this morning and I should be preparing myself instead of looking at the cityscape.

I looked at the clothes I bought from Cloe yesterday and picked a cotton one-piece dress with a pleated skirt dyed yellow from the weld plant. It was a happy dress that had a square neckline and would show some nice cleavage if I used it with the pushup bra. Instead, I was going to hide my skin with a white shirt underneath because in this society only harlots and poor man's slaves showed their cleavage in public. They showed a lot more than just the cleavage though.

The cotton was rough, far from the expected quality of modern cotton clothes but this was not there neither then. I still remember how Cloe reacted to the clothes I showed her. Too bad that app was dead weight. I'm so going to rip off the image database from the device when I get a chance. I took a red sash and wrapped it around my waist like an obi. I tied my hair in a ponytail with a ligth red ribbon that matched my sash, making a pretty bow over my head. I let one strand on each side to frame my face. Finally, I put on my sneakers.

I went to the kitchen in search of food, feeling sunny in my new clothes. Maybe I should introduce big-brimmed floppy hats. Or should I go all the way with the derby hat? There's more than enough straw to work with. And handbags. I could make a killing selling handbags to rich ladies. I needed to fix my shoe situation next. I only had four pairs of shoes. The hiking boots, sneakers, a pair of flip-flops and the titanium high heels with golden trimmings. I thought about how I could make jewelry and the shoes look good but the helmet came out hideous. Was it the mental image and the familiarity with the objects? Maybe.

Belle-Sunu was working hard with the other cooks, as usual. She greeted me before even turning around.

"Good morning, Sandra. How are you... What a lovely dress! Are you hungry? I'll have your breakfast served right away."

She brought me a plate with figs, apricots, and some nuts along with flatbread covered with a bean paste and a mug of kefir. After putting everything on the table, Belle leaned and whispered. "You forgot to punch the bag," She pointed at the goatskin hung next to the kitchen entrance.

"Oh," I gasped and turned my neck around to look at the bag. It was really hard to miss but good ol' Sandra did. "I didn't expect it to be up this soon!"

I stood up and held the goatskin. It was full of milk. I shook it, feeling the liquid slosh inside. Then I returned to my chair and had my breakfast. I was itching to tell Belle of the uniforms I commissioned but I wanted it to be a surprise. I ate my breakfast in silence but when I stood up, Belle was there to pick up the dishes.

"Nanna wants to see you. It seems she has a gift for you."

A gift from the witch. So long it is not apples or candy in general, I guess it is fine to accept.

I left the kitchen and went to the annex. I checked the room where my stuff was. Everything seemed to be in place, but now with the trash, silk spools, fabrics, pelts, and most of the ingots gone, it felt rather empty. The fear of losing the irreplaceable stuff was turning me into a hoarder. Not good. I closed the door and turned around to knock on Nanna's.

"Enter, girl," The witch's raspy voice sounded from inside.

I pushed the door open and entered. The scent of the boiled liver was overwhelming. Whatever she was boiling in her cauldron, I wanted distance from.

"Good morning, Nanna," I greeted her pinching my nose and regretted opening my mouth. I was tasting boiled liver now. "What's brewing?"

She chuckled and checked the cauldron. "Vitality potions. They take a few weeks to set and there will be a lot of demand for them, once the temple of Ishtar opens its doors after the bridal market. I have to brew them in advance. Do you want to taste them?"

I shook my head. I tried to avoid it but I was sure I was making a disgusted face. "No, thank you. In fact, I have grounds to believe I don't need them. That was one of the things I wanted to ask you."

She didn't answer right away. She stirred the caldron, scraping the bottom with her wooden ladle and checked the consistency. Then she scooped the foam from the top and dumped it on a bucket.

"We might as well go outside for a talk. I don't want you throwing up inside my room," She groaned. "What are you waiting for. Shoo, shoo. Go outside and smell some flowers."

I nodded and left. With the corner of my eye, I saw Nanna adjust the air intake of the stove before leaving. Outside and in the open, the clean but dry air saved my breakfast from a rather tragic and wasteful end. The witch joined me soon after, with a burlap pouch in her hand.

"Feeling Better?" I nodded. "Good. What do you want to talk about?"

Better go straight to the point. "I noticed yesterday I can use some traits from my bonded pets. I have Honey Cake's stamina, Bloodstone's far sight and I also cushioned a fall with wind magic."

She grinned. "Took you long enough to realize that. Yes, each bonded animal will grant you its major traits. Too bad the first one you got was an ordinary horse. You also share your own traits with them. But beware! Each animal you bond with puts additional strain on your magic. Most beast tamers can't bond with more than two because of their limited magic pools."

"That was what I thought. I didn't try to bond with the cat I found yesterday. It was a strange story, let me tell you..." I told her the whole story regarding the silver lynx and Dime's rescue. Nanna listened with a neutral and unreadable face. "... Don't you think that the cat's behavior was too strange? It was as if he was luring Bloodstone away from me!"

She nodded. "Indeed. But it was 'just' a dumb cat. Probably just toying with the bird. You know how cats are," She replied. It sounded dismissive and insincere. "Don't frown like that, girl. In the end, it was good that the bird went out of range for a while. The amount of energy you need to keep the bond with the sky-lord is ten times as much as the horse's."

Wait, if having Dime away from me lowered my upkeep, it would help my recovery. Did it mean that it was intentional? "Do you mean that whoever sent the cat was trying to help me?"

"Who would do such a thing?" Nanna groaned, visibly annoyed. "You are being paranoid, Sandra. Not everything is about you."

Maybe she was right. "Okay. I'll drop it."

"Good, good girl," She tapped my arm. "Now, I have this for you. I spent an entire day crafting, take it."

She handed the bag to me. I opened it and took a necklace, with a dreamcatcher thing in the middle, made of flaxen string. The pattern was extremely well-woven and I couldn't even fathom how it was woven.

I kept staring at the pattern. "What does it do? It's beautiful!"

She replied matter-of-factly. "Oh. It is a cursed item..."

"Fuck!" I threw it away.

"... to seal your magic. Put it on, please!" Nanna displayed agility beyond what her aged body should have and caught it mid-flight.

"Stupid girl. It is meant to help you. Put it on! This will seal your magic and plug the leaks!"

She explained as if sealing magic and plugging the leak was a tautology, an obvious conclusion like 'cut living beings and they bleed'.

She pressed the amulet against me and I had to fight to not back off. "Why?" I mumbled, afraid.

"This amulet will seal your magic and the leaks. But as you resist curses, it will break and stop working in less than a day. Then you will be completely healed. Or do you want to spend another week feeling useless?"

Oh, wow. Thanks for the candid caring candor, Nanna. You might think I should be used to the witch's tough-love style but no. I was still soft and delicate as a bar of butter in this weather. Especially the last statement, that I was useless, hurt like hell.

I took the cursed dreamcatcher or whatever-catcher it was called and put the string over my neck. I felt a shiver over my entire body and suddenly I couldn't feel my magic anymore.

She gave me an appraising look. "Great. Not a single ounce of magic escaping your being. Keep your animals locked in as they are for the day, you don't want to risk them escaping. The amulet should break before the next dawn. I can already see your divine protection fighting it off."

A stray thought caused me to worry. What about my defenses? My passive protections? I voiced my concern to her.

"They work inside your body so they are still effective. The amulet only blocks you from projecting magic outside. It might help to stay away from trees with wild felines for a while," She told me with a smirk and a chuckle.

I felt... mundane. Normal. Exposed. Afraid. If something happened while I had this amulet on, I wouldn't be able to defend myself. And I had an appointment with the Nephew-Enshi. Wonderful.

"When you say break, Nanna, do you mean physically break or another kind of break?"

She looked at me as if I'd asked if the ceiling was above the floor. "The string will unravel and snap. You'll feel your magic back. I hope you'll be fully healed by then."

As paranoid and afraid I was, I had to admit that spending a day to make this for me was very thoughtful of her. I hugged the witch and she grunted in surprise. I hid the amulet under my shirt. No need to let people know I was wearing it.

"Thank you, Nanna. I have to go now. The carriage will depart to the Enshi's palace."

I was half expecting her to send me away with a "take care" or something but she just went back to her concoctions. I went to my room to leave my devices there and then to the front yard where Abil-Kisu was waiting for me on his carriage and helped me, board.

"Lovely dress, Sandra," he told me. "Madam Cloe's work is really superb."

I felt as if I could be a straw doll and the dress would still be lovely. Or a wooden plank. I tried to not show it but the merchant read me like an open book. He didn't try to fix his blunder though. Or didn't recognize it as a blunder.

"Don't worry. The Enshi has no interest in antagonizing you any further," Abil-Kisu said during our ride.

I sighed and looked out through the window. While I didn't have to tell anyone that I was powerless for a day, I wondered if any magician could see it. All of them so far were able to see the amount of magical power I had.

Maybe I wouldn't run into any as they were as rare as a hen's thumbs. I wouldn't bet against teeth.

The ride was silent until we arrived at the palace. We were received by some scribes. They talked something with Abil-Kisu and then we were led inside. Instead of going to the council room, we took the main corridor and halted before a set of double doors. Four guards were posted in front, all of them holding short spears with steel tips. Their torsos were naked and they were wearing a miniskirt made of interconnected vertical leather bands and leather sandals. They were strong but showed clear signs of being eunuchs, like the lack of a beard or chest hair. The lead scribe approached the guards.

"Honorable merchant Abil-Kisu and lady Rinaldi," He announced with a well-projected voice.

The guards pushed the door open. Maybe having the door open outward would be a liability as they could be blocked inside. The scribes took us in and I got a good look at the inner palace.

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe something that improved health, added to the population and spawned engineers. But there was nothing of the kind. Oh, wait. Did I count as an engineer? Because there were some plants, vines and what looked like bindweed over the pillars. It was a lush garden with plants, bushes, and some flowers and I could hear water trickling. As we moved deeper through the garden, I saw some men dressed in a gray-brown toga and turbans working the gardens. The water came from a groove in the roof and fell down on a suspended basin made of marble, where it would spread in several directions to irrigate the channels and to feed a device.

The water clock.

It was a true wonder. Made of brass and carved stone, it had a spigot almost near the roof from where a trickle of water poured into a large conical bowl. At the bottom, another trickle of water poured into a wheel with several cavities. Once a cavity filled, the wheel would go one-sixtieth of a turn and dump the water on a lower basin. A set of gears then moved several decorated cylinders with figures of animals, celestial objects, and people that marked the year, day, hour, and minute. I desperately wanted to study it and snap some photos but there were two problems.

I left my devices home.

I approached and looked at the device without touching. The main wheel spun once every minute-ish or so, I couldn't measure it. The brass gears were well-made and decorated with inlaid patterns. I counted the teeth and did some calculations. The main wheel counted minutes and there were sixty of them. It had numbers written on it and only one of them was upright at any time. There was a golden loop in front of the wheel where this number could be read. It read thirty-five minutes. One of the positions, the sixty had a tooth that would force the hour cylinder to move ahead one position. It was marking for three hours. Strange but maybe it marked the hours from sunrise as the hour zero I could see had an engraving of a golden sun rising behind some mountains.

This cylinder also had a gear that would feed two other cylinders. One that had twenty-eight markings, probably for a lunar month and another that had seven. I finally knew the day of the month and week. It was the sixth day. No days of the week had a proper name except for the last one. In modern Akkadian, it read 'Sa-Bat'. Yes, good old' Sabbath apparently had its roots in the Mesopotamian bronze age language. Translated it meant "Halfway rest", or "Rest at the middle of the month" if you wanted to force the translation a bit.

As for the week, it was the third week of the month. These two cylinders had gears that fed the second-to-last cylinder, the months. It was currently on a marking where one could see a rising and falling pattern that showed the sun scorching the land below while a bull walked on the surface. I assumed it meant summer. It was the third month of summer, meaning that next month would mark the beginning of the autumn.

It meant we were in March if we were in the southern hemisphere or September if on the northern. And yes, there were twelve months. Next, onto the years. This one was curious. There was a glass tube with spherical marbles inside. The tube had markings and I could see that every time the month cylinder did a full rotation a new marble would fall inside. It read... one.

And I finally had the date. We were on Friday the twentieth of March / September, Month of the Bull, of year 1 of the Nephew era.

Yes, the asshole restarted the calendar.

My time to contemplate the marvelous water clock and bite my thumb at the follies of the Nephew-King ended as I was called by Abil-Kisu.

"Sandra, it is time to eat. Our slot was pushed to the afternoon."

I had no idea how much time I spent examining and admiring the water clock but the sun had moved a good deal from when I entered the gardens. I went with Abil-Kisu to a side room where a lavish meal was set for us.

"Let me eat first, just to make sure there's no poison," I told the merchant.

He chortled. "Confess, you are just hungry."

"Maybe?"

We ate and talked about small details. He caught the thieves and recovered some of his stolen merchandise. After lunch we had a cup of tea and rested for a while. Then the crier came and called my name.

"Yes?" I turned around.

"The Enshi called for you, milady," The crier answered. "Please, this way."

We went to a side wing that ended in double doors with more half-naked burly guards. At least they weren't oiled. The door opened and I saw the throne room proper.

Into the lion's den.